Integrity in cultural heritage management

As the Registered Cultural Heritage Body for the Gold Coast region, Jabree insists on providing high quality services that preserve and promote our indigenous heritage in a way that our community members and clients can have pride and confidence in.

Cultural heritage is our community’s intellectual property, and as a community are all responsible for the integrity of cultural work that is occurring.

Jabree’s approach to cultural heritage management is distinguished from common / standard methods, as we do not offer cultural heritage monitoring services as a recommended means of identifying or managing our cultural heritage.

Our approach provides a better opportunity to preserve the archaeological and cultural integrity of what is found. This provides greater certainty for clients that significant sites and artefacts have been identified prior to the start of a development and that appropriate management strategies are in place.

A cultural heritage monitoring approach may also uncover sites of high cultural heritage sensitivity (such as artefacts or a shell midden). However there is greater potential for this process to disturb and affect the archaeological integrity of the find. For instance, the monitoring process may recover an artefact in bull dozer spoil. By this stage the artefact has already been removed from its original location and from other elements, such as charcoal, that can help scientifically date the site.

By working with clients on a targeted and controlled process as part of early planning, Jabree helps to reduce the likelihood of additional significant sites or artefacts being uncovered during development activities, which is where damage can occur and where the need for further cultural heritage assessments can affect project schedules and cost.

Jabree also works with clients to develop workforce induction material to equip workers with an essential understanding of our cultural heritage, and how to identify and respond to unexpected finds.